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Ranching in Kazakhstan

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Wilsonconsulting

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Location
Singhampton Ontario
Hey my name is Brock, Im 22 years old from Singhampton Ontario. Currently living and managing a 2400 head hereford cow calf operation north west of astana kazakhstan. Been here now for 3 months and still have another 9 to go in my contract. Im a cattle consultant and i am here evaluating and improving this farm for an overall increase in their calf crop.

My title is farm manager here although i am subcontracted and work for Wilson Consulting Group. Winters are bruatlly cold here and the winds are high. a lot worse then ontario or alberta canada which i have farmed and done lots of calving in both provinces. A friend showed me this site and told me i should tell some people about what i am doing over here and some of my stories from here, so feel free to ask, cause i love telling them. Ill keep adding to this thread weekly so all you folks can read about all the crazyness that goes on over here.

thanks for reading
 
can you post any pictures? What is the land base like and how do you handle grazing, turn out collect in fall, rotational or more intenzive grazing? Thanx for posting.
 
Yes i will post some pictures, where i am its flat, very flat, i havent seen pasture yet but from what iv gathered is we have 2 pastures, not sure size, they just want me to dump all the canadain heifers in one pasture and in the second one split kazak cows and american cows to each side. put bulls out same time. Its very difficult to get through to them and change their ways so im trying to explain a breeding season to them and try to keep it contained but its a struggle. We drag little shacks out there and 2 employeew stay there for 2 days then rotate. I cant give to many more details since i have yet to see my pastures myself.
 
You be careful - I got into a two day running gun fight in that country about 18 months ago - it is not all love and roses over there.

Adventure is cool - but not all of them love you depite the smiles and kisses.

Otherwise enjoy - you will have stories for your grandchildren.

BC
 
Wilsonconsulting said:
oh i know, they can very ruthless! hopfully it all works out in the end, definatly making some positive and good changes. Change is definatly in needed
Click to expand...

You are far more generous than me - I personally believe a damn good culling is needed before change will ever happen - but as I stated - enjoy - for the most part people go over there and have nothing happen - but Shymkent was a couple exciting days for me.

You will associate with a very different group of people than I did - just stay away from the women and the children.

BC
 
There is an interesting article in the last Canadian Hereford digest. Young guy from Ontario working in Russia.
Sounds like making even common sense changes was like trying to push a rope. You'd have to be young to put up with it.
 
Welcome to the forum, Wilsonconsulting. Looking forward to your stories.

BC--I can't even imagine what all you have been through. Thanks again for
your service. I would love to hear some of YOUR stories........or maybe not..... :wink: Too harrowing. :?
 
so do you got any first calvers with their racks still on them? i sent some over the other fall as replacements. can't remember the guys names that come here and looked. ended up somewhere in kazakhstan - never been able to get in touch with anyone about them again.

so the american females you got - is the quality OK. i seen a big group of them being quarantined to go over there and i thought the quality was pretty questionable.

good luck with all that. be neat to see some pictures of the people and surroundings.
 
Hello Wilsonconsulting, and Good Friday greetings from Brussels, Ontario!

Quite an adventure that you have undertaken. A loong way from home!

Had a very nice day in this part of the world, with milder temperatures taking the snow cover back to less than 50% of the ground still under a white blanket. A couple more days should do it.
 
Been to one of these games yet? You know, the one where they fight over a dead goat?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJp7589YhXE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqW-MWAiODE
 
Yes the americans are of ok quality, but our biggest problem over here is feed shortage. They seem to think feeding them one bunk full of dry hay a day is enough. The cattle are skinney and this years calves are brutal, very small and weak, most not even surviving. Nutrition is my biggest battle here but i am making some progresss now. This fall we are going to do a bunch of haylage and barlage which will be nice. I would like to up the energy in these cattle by geeting some corn silage into them but its impossible in this part of kazakhstan to grow corn so i have been told.
 
Are these the cattle that we were told had to be bred to a Topp bull? Is there 2 countries that both sound like Kazakhstan? Last summer a man and women visited in our area and said they represented a private group and wanted to purchase open and bredhereford females and would be back in August to finalize their plans. Never heard from them again and have'nt even thought much about them until I saw this thread. Did summer a small package of heifers for a fellow and they were A I'd to a Topp polled bull and cleaned up by another Topp bull,then shipped last fall to Bismarck. I was told that these cattle went to the same country as Stevensons sent the big bunch of blacks to 2--3 years ago. One other thing the people that visited here claimed that all of their purchases had to come from Nortern U.S. or Canada. Makes me no difference just wonder'ed if anybody else had seen these people and what finally happened. I remember many years ago when there was millions of hereffords and Poland wanted to improve their beef cattle industry, they came to the U.S. and decided that herefords were what they needed and the AHA took them on a guided tour to select the cattle. Nobody but those with the big ad budget's were contacted or considered. Once again it did not effect our particular operation but at that time I did know guys that could have used the business and always remember the lession learned " if you want in with the big boys pay your dues first". Also do remember after the world hereford conference last summer I was reading a article by the sect. of the Irish Herefod breeders about them exporting quite a lot of breeding cattle to one of these countries. One other thing before i quit is I'm not so sure that we should be sending to many cattle to our potential competitors as it may come back to haunt us down the road. Nuf said!!!
 
Are you confident that you can meet their nutritional needs, or do you need to look at the genotype? The larger type modern British cattle are not ideal for this type of grazing, the heritage breeds are more adapted to poor forage. Might Galloways be a better breed to consider for the prevailing conditions there?
 
yes i can meet the needs just need to get the proper amount seeded. They are all american and canadain herefords and 1000 headof kazak white heads. I think with the proper amount of silage and carefully calculated ration we can have these cattle performing at a peak level. Its not that the crops here are bad cause there not. They did a little bit of barlage last fall and it was great. They just didnt do enough of it. Its just very tough to get a entire company and 7 men in 2000 dollar suits sitting in a office in the city convinced that yes we need to do this or yes we need to spend this money. Got to spend money to make money, just frustrating trying to make the change which is needed.
 
Interesting adventure there young man! In another life I had an operating company based there and a mobile lab working just north of the Caspian Sea. We went in under contract to British Gas and therefore didn't have a lot of contact with the locals other than handling bookkeeping out of Almaty.

Post some pics when you can.
 
Hello Wilson consulting. I just want to know if there are any more opportunities there for experienced cattlemen
I am looking for a different challenge in countries such as Kazakhstan,Russia, Ukraine. I am available from October thru March every year. Let me know if you can help. Thanks keep the posts coming. If i could figure out how we private message it would be great.
 
AllisD45 - look at the bottom of the post of the person you wish to message, you will see the PM icon, click on the icon and the messaging page will come up.
 

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